Wars They Created
by snappleducated
Summary: And if he doesn't think about her, hard, she begins to wander out of his memory as well.  — KyonMikuru


**Entitled**: Wars They Created  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya  
><strong>Length<strong>: 3,400 words  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own TMOHS and etc.  
><strong>Notes<strong>: Someone gave me a map and made me in charge of directions. This was a very stupid thing to do, because I equated 'north' with 'up' and insisted we relocate to the stratosphere.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: And if he doesn't think about her, hard, she begins to wander out of his memory as well. — KyonMikuru

* * *

><p><em>29 to 5.<em>

Kyon wakes up dreaming.

A woman pulls away from him, smelling warm and sweet. She smiles apologetically when she notices that he's awake, and taps the side of his nose. Her blouse is starched white, and well pressed, and there is a composure to her that seems somehow wrong.

He clutches at the edge of her skirt.

"Go back to sleep, Kyon-kun," she murmurs. And because he is warm and sleepy and calmed, he shuts his eyes and does so. She smells very faintly of wet rock-candy.

By the morning, her shape has blurred into a dream.

* * *

><p><em>17 to 16.<em>

Mikuru Asahina is the prettiest girl in school. This is standard knowledge.

But it isn't as though she's the prettiest girl in the world. Surely. Surely, he has seen other, prettier girls.

But it's hard for him to stop looking at her. It's hard, not because she's beautiful, but because he can't shake his hauntings. Because he knows her every expression before she forms it, and he knows everything about her while simultaneously knowing nothing, and somehow, it isn't enough.

And then, of course, Haruhi Suzumiya happens, and Kyon's life kind of explodes, and when he gets his bearings again he's sitting next to Mikuru Asahina, who's smiling at him kind of sheepishly, with her eyes curved away, like she had a secret he wasn't allowed to know.

And he wants, more than anything else in the world, to share that secret with her.

* * *

><p>"Asahina-san?"<p>

Mikuru looks up immediately, her face bright and eager, "Yes?"

"Have you ever spoken to...yourself? From the past or the future?"

For a moment, she looks crushingly guilty. "N-no..."

Kyon taps his pencil against the side of the desk and gnaws at the inside of his cheek.

Mikuru squeaks, "Please don't tell! I-It was my future self's fault, though!"

He grins. Mikuru buries her face into her hands and whimpers, "And...it was important, anyways. But sometimes I write messages for my future self!"

"That's a memo, Asahina-san."

Mikuru flushes, "O-oh. I suppose you're right."

For a moment he just watches her, a feeling of overwhelming fondness pushing against the back of his throat. "What did she say?"

"Eh?"

"The future you. What was so important that she had to risk the universe's stability?"

Mikuru bites her lip, "Classified information?"

"Ah, got it," Kyon rolls out his shoulders, goes back to working, and pushes a half-dreamed memory to the back of his head.

* * *

><p>Haruhi has them ghost hunting less than 24 hours later, and the second time Kyon has to catch Mikuru to keep her from tumbling to the ground, he remembers the warning her older self had delivered to him.<p>

("You should really be more careful, Kyon-kun. You shouldn't get so close. Don't let me get so close. Remember that. Promise.")

When they are promptly separated from the rest of the group shortly thereafter, he is able to think of little else.

"I don't like this place," Mikuru whimpers, seeming to clutch the edge of his sleeve almost subconsciously. Her flashlight chooses this moment to go out, and Mikuru cheeps in fright. Kyon resists the urge to pump his fist.

"K-Kyon-kun, I can't see—"

"Don't worry," Kyon says, in what he hopes is a suave and self-assured sort of way, and reaches for her hand. It fits against his own exactly as he had known it would. His heart stutters. He stops walking, and looks down at their interlaced fingers, the palms that clasp together, as closely as is possible.

"We really shouldn't," Mikuru whispers. Her eyes are enormous and her hair is very soft and her skin is smooth enough for him to long to press his cheek against hers, like a child. He wants her in an ancient, almost primitive way, a wanting that comes close to need.

"Okay," Kyon agrees, voice low. She looks up at him for a long moment, teeth sneaking over her lower lip and catching hold. She worries it, destroying him slowly, then draws a breath.

She touches the side of his face, "Just for a moment," she says, and he imagines that their eyes close at exactly the same time. He kisses the swipe of lipgloss covering her mouth, then her mouth, her lips and teeth and tongue, the tip of her nose and the hot, trembling delicacy of her eyelids.

"I think I'm in love with you," he tells her, without embarrassment, without knowing why he says it or how it came to be true, only knowing it to be true.

"You can't," she says softly, strangely confident in his arms. She puts her face against his neck and he feels the cool tip of her nose, her hot breath as she says, "Not yet. Promise me."

"No," he mumbles, "No, I won't."

She holds him tightly for a moment, and he feels the exact moment when her muscles tense as she braces to pull away. "You mustn't get too attached," she says, voice raw. He thinks she means Haruhi, and is surprised by the anger feels—not at Haruhi herself, but at something to do with her he is unable to wholly name. He pushes it down, disconcerted.

"Please," he says, and tightens his grip because she hadn't brought herself to leave him completely.

She swallows, and he watches her struggle, for a moment reminding him again of the meek little girl forever bossed around by Haruhi. "Just friends," she says at last, and looks at him meaningfully, "I can't. You know I can't. Please understand." She looks at him with a kind of strange desperation he has difficulty deciphering

* * *

><p><em>18 to 17.<em>

He fails.

The point of reckoning comes one day when the sun has begun to set, and the club room is flooded with orange light, and he and Haruhi are the only two left in the clubroom, cutting out thousands of paper stars for god-knows-what, he'd stopped listening seven months ago.

"Kyon?"

Haruhi sits directly across from him, and there is something decidedly firm about her jaw and her gaze when he looks up at her. "What's up?"

"I want to go to the movies."

"So, go."

"I want to go to the movies this Saturday," Haruhi insists, stubborn.

"Do you need a loan? A ride? What?" Kyon asks her, exasperated. Haruhi stares at him for a second, the center of her mouth moving slowly upwards, before she bolts upright and marches around the table towards him, stopping directly beside his chair. He notes the hands balled at her sides, and stands too, uncertain.

"I want to go to the movies on Saturday with _you_," Haruhi grinds out, not really asking, but still with a decidedly feminine blush. Kyon blinks.

"Oh. Sure. I'm getting lunch with Asahina-san on Saturday, though, so can it be in the evening?"

It registers, as he says this, how poorly he had chosen those words, and—_Haruhi_. Haruhi was finally asking him out on a date, and he didn't really know how he felt about that, because it had always been everyone else's job to decide how he should feel about Haruhi, and...

The door scrapes against the floor as it opens.

He sees her over Haruhi's shoulder in the second that Mikuru opens the door, and their eyes meet, and the bottom of his stomach falls out and he starts to open his mouth to shout, to warn her not to make a sound, not _now_.

But Haruhi has already begun to turn, brown hair flying out around her, bright eyes closing, and he catches a breath of her perfume, and by the time Haruhi's eyes have opened again, nobody is standing in the doorway.

It hangs, empty and open, and for a second Haruhi just stares at it. Then she crosses the room, braces her hands on either side of the frame, and leans out into the hall. She looks in both directions, "Hello?"

In the next instant, she closes the door, and turns back towards him, shrugging, "Weird."

Kyon throws himself past her, and tears the door open. He moves so quickly that his shoulder catches against Haruhi's chest and sends her stumbling backwards. His footsteps hit the hallway floor hard and flat, echoing through the unnaturally quiet space. His throat is burning.

"Hey, Kyon!"

His throat is burning and he can't breath.

"Hey!" Haruhi snaps again, and this time her hand connects with the the back of his elbow, wrenches him around to face the brunt of her ire. Her face thrusts towards his, aggressive and sharp in its lines. "You _pushed_ me!"

"She's gone," Kyon says, without meaning to. Haruhi appears not to hear him.

"I mean, jeez! What the heck are you doing? And be more careful, you ingrate! I am—"

"Where's Mikuru?" Kyon interrupted, "What'd you do?"

Haruhi's eyes widen, and it's only when she slaps his hand down that he realizes he'd grabbed her by the shoulders. She almost stutters, "What are you _talking_ about? _Who_ are you talking about?"

"Asahina-san!" Kyon almost yells, and Haruhi actually begins to take a step back before she remembers herself, then digs in her heels, and shouts back.

"I don't know who that is! What's _wrong_ with you? Are you sick or something? Is this a joke?"

She glares at him for a few seconds, angry and hurt, with her breathing uneven, before she turns with a sharp toss of her hair. "Whatever. I'm going home."

She does just that, storming back into the club room and haphazardly collecting her things, then marches back into the hallway and straight past him, her face trained pointedly at the ground.

Kyon remains standing there, listening to the angry fall of her footsteps until he can no longer hear them.

In the next minute, he bolts back into the clubroom, and begins tearing through all the useless junk he and the others had collected over time. All of Mikuru's costumes are gone. So is her tea set. So are the papers and books she'd kept stashed in the top right desk.

And she isn't in any of the pictures on the computer.

And the desk she'd occupied in her homeroom is now cluttered with the oddities of another girl.

And if he doesn't think about her, hard, she begins to wander out of his memory as well.

* * *

><p>"I see," Nagato nods, as Kyon finishes his tale. She sits primly upon the edge of her seat, immaculate as the rest of her apartment, "There was a fifth member in our group, a time traveler known as Mikuru Asahina, who has for all intents and purposes, never existed."<p>

"She _existed_," Kyon almost snaps, "I know she did. I think Haruhi erased her."

Nagato's face moves in a way that suggests curiosity, "Why?"

Kyon swallows, "I don't know. I don't think she honestly meant to. I was stupid and insensitive and I hurt her feelings and I think maybe she just thought it for a second, but then it actually _happened_, and now nobody remembers her, not even _you_. Not even the person who erased her."

"But _you_ do," Nagato points out, "A phenomenon that can only be explained in one way: you have met her in another time. Out of sequence. An Asahina that should not have been there, and therefore only exists for you.

"Then," Kyon's hands fist in his lap, "What do I _do_? How do I bring her _back_?"

Nagato tips her head to the side, and looks at him almost pityingly. "I don't know. She doesn't exist anymore. I'm sorry."

"But you just said that she does exist."

"For you," Nagato agrees.

* * *

><p><em>5 to 29.<em>

She's just a little girl, and the men and women in laboratories have only begun to understand the fourth dimension—how to move in a way that curved upon itself, infinitely.

Just a little girl.

Her sundress skims low enough to flash half of the mole upon her chest. Kyon puts his glass down, his heart in his mouth, and begins to stand. She turns. Her eyes are young and impossibly innocent, her hand clasped around her mother's. Her eyes smile shyly into his own.

He remains frozen upon his bar stool, watching as she made her way up the street. A hand settles upon his shoulder, and he turns, knowing.

Mikuru smiles.

* * *

><p><em>29 to 29.<em>

"That was you," Kyon says, loud but feebly, pointing out the window, "You're just a little girl. You've just been born a few years ago."

"Yes," Mikuru agrees, eyes intent upon his own. She swallows, "I wanted to see you."

"But," Kyon is staggered, "Oh god, I'm so much older than you. You. It's _you_."

He reaches out and touches her hand. It fits against his own. He looks at their fingers, and back into her face, "Stay with me," he whispers, "Please. Please, don't go back."

"I'm going to disappear soon," she says, "I don't know where. The loop closes. The me that exists now will vanish, and the little girl out there will grow up—to a point—and go back in time. The only stop left for me is to find her, and explain. Once she sees me, I'll disappear."

"Don't," Kyon says immediately, "Don't disappear. Don't tell her."

"But if I don't tell her," Mikuru smiled a strange, sad smile, "Then I won't ever be able to fall in love with you. And if that doesn't happen...well, there's no point."

"But...you'll disappear. You disappeared. Haruhi erased you."

"I have a plan," Mikuru murmurs, with that same strange little smile, and she tugs on their joined hands. "Come with me. I want you to understand."

"Why will you disappear?" Kyon demands, not moving until her lips press together. He follows her reluctantly outside, and down the street, lined on either side with building made entirely from glass and metal, spotless and gleaming.

"Because I will become her," Mikuru says lightly. Her eyes flick to him, "I'll rewind myself to be seventeen years old, and return to the past, where the other teenage-me is on assignment. In twelve years, little-me will be heading out. All I have to do is touch her, and we will become the same person."

"But she _erases_ you!" Kyon hisses, "Why are you going if you already know what's going to happen?"

She squeezes his hand, and stops walking, so he is forced to turn and face her and her strange, grim smile, "Because all of this has happened before. Exactly as before. We were just this age and then...something awful happened with Suzumiya-san, so I had to rewind you, to fix things, but it didn't work because you remembered me. You remembered us. But at the same time, you didn't."

He looks at her, long and hard, as she drops his hand and touches his temple, lightly running her fingers down to the angle of his jaw. He swallows. "What?" he asks her, "What happened?"

"She sees me kiss you," Mikuru says, and goes up on her toes, eyes closed, and even as Kyon leans into her, he thinks he glimpses a woman coming around the corner, a woman with familiar brown hair.

"Don't look," Mikuru whispers, and kisses him. Their eyes close at exactly the same time.

His hands come up to tangle in her hair.

And Kyon, eyes still closed, feels a drag, against every atom of his being, as though he were suddenly made from molasses, and the things begin speeding from his head as he flies backwards, his hands still buried in Mikuru's hair, his mouth still against hers in a kiss that goes on, and on...

* * *

><p><em>29 to 5.<em>

Kyon wakes up dreaming.

A woman pulls away from him, smelling warm and sweet. She smiles apologetically when she notices that he's awake, and taps the side of his nose. Her blouse is starched white, and well pressed, and there is a composure to her that seems somehow wrong.

He clutches at the edge of her skirt.

"Go back to sleep, Kyon-kun," she murmurs. And because he is warm and sleepy and calmed, he shuts his eyes and does so. She smells very faintly of wet rock-candy.

"I love you," he tells her, or perhaps he only dreams it.

(But what is true is that the woman sits beside him for the rest of the night, her eyes filled up with blue. "You have to forget me," she says into his hair, "You have to forget.")

* * *

><p><em>18 to 17.<em>

"I want to go to the movies on Saturday with _you_," Haruhi grinds out, not really asking, but still with a decidedly feminine blush. Kyon blinks.

"Okay," he says, a little hesitantly. They stare at one another for a moment, until Haruhi turns an impressive shade of scarlet and she looks away from him hastily.

"W-well, good," she starts to say, and then the door opens. Mikuru draws up short upon entering, staring in shock at Haruhi's face, which continues to deepen in hue.

"S-Suzumiya-san?"

"Fine!" Haruhi shouts, and abruptly flees from the room, her things thrown hastily over her arm. There is a decidedly agonizing moment when her calculator clatters to the floor, and Mikuru bends to fetch it for her. The door slams on her way out, and both Kyon and Mikuru collectively wince.

After an awkward pause, Kyon picks up his coat and bag as well, "I should go after her," he says, indicating with his chin. Mikuru jumps, and hurries to get out of his way.

"Oh! Oh, of course. Excuse me," she demurs, and steps quickly to the side, face turned towards the floor. Kyon mutters something with a distracted smile, but pauses just before leaving, his hand on the door.

There is a slight pause.

Mikuru's face turns up towards his own. "Yes?"

"No..." Kyon trails away. He smiles awkwardly, "No, it's nothing. Sorry. Have a good weekend, Asahina-san."

"Goodbye, Kyon-kun," she replies.


End file.
